血

• Physical substance: Blood. In medical or cosmological contexts, frequently paired as 血氣 (//xue-qi//) to denote vital energy, temperament, or the impulsive passions of youth and vigor.
• Genealogical: Lineage, kinship, or blood relation; denotes the link of descent in contexts such as ancestral rites or family disputes.
• Narrative/Violence: A shorthand for slaughter, carnage, or sacrifice; often functions as an emotional marker of brutality (e.g., "blood-stained").

• Noun: Primary function.
• Attributive: When modifying another noun, it can mean "bloody" (stained with blood) or "consanguineous" (related by blood).
• Verbal Use: In highly compressed archaic prose, it may imply the act of shedding blood or the result of a wound. This is rare and typically accompanied by a verb of motion or flow (e.g., 流 //liu//).

• 血 (//xue//) vs. 精 (//jing//): In early philosophical or medical texts, both may refer to a person's vital essence. While //xue// is specific to the fluid/vitality, //jing// refers to a more refined, concentrated essence.
• Symbolic Red: Distinguish from 丹 (//dan//, cinnabar), which carries alchemical or symbolic connotations of immortality and redness, whereas 血 remains rooted in the biological or the violent.

Tang-period reading: *xuet.

Exercise caution before reading the glyph as a standalone verb; it is primarily nominal.